Sewing Blankets

A woman reminisces about her past while completing a sewing task.

I am sitting at my old Singer sewing machine, circa 1960-something, that I bought second-hand when my boys were babies. I was home for the first time after years of working for the local library—a new stay-at-home mom with twins to keep me very busy. Except when they were sleeping. Then I grew restless and tired of washing spit up off of sleepers and trying new recipes and scrubbing toilets. Then I wanted to do something, anything creative, and so I remembered how my mother used sew outfits for me on her sewing machine. On an impulse I got out the classifieds in the newspaper and found an old Singer machine for sale—only $50.

               Don was working and I didn’t want to wait, so I strapped the babies in their car seats and drove the 10 miles to the home of an old woman who lived with her daughter—who didn’t sew and didn’t want to learn. Their house was musty and hot—they kept the windows closed with the air conditioning off, even though it was in the seventies outside. The old woman pulled a bag out of her closet that was full of something soft and lumpy.

               “I hope you enjoy the machine,” she said, “I sewed all my children’s clothes with it, but I can’t see well enough to use it anymore.”

               I nodded, and watched curiously and she continued to fumble with the bag. I wanted to help her to open it, but somehow that seemed rude. This was something she needed to do for herself.

               “Here’s something for your babies,” she said, pulling out a pair of matching bunnies, which she carried out to the car and put next to each boy in their car seats. I removed them later and threw them in the wash, but I could never get the peculiar smell of her house off of them, so they ended up in the trash.

               Her son-in-law helped me load the machine into the trunk of my car and tied the lid down so it wouldn’t pop up while I was driving. I hauled the old Singer home and set it up in a spare bedroom. It was cranky and slow, and it smelled of burnt sewing oil when I ran it, but it worked. I sewed the boys’ christening outfits out of a pretty white muslin, and even put detailed embroidery around the collars.

               Now I am sitting with the boys’ baby blankets in my lap. Matthew brought them to me this morning—he must have fished them from the back of their closet. I had forgotten where I stored them. Both boys were dedicated blanket babies who carried their “nummies” around the house and slept with them each night until they were 5. Matthew’s was baby blue, and Brian’s blanket was a seafoam green.  I am holding them now, stroking them gently as I watch our grey tabby cat pacing back and forth in the open screened window. I lift them to my nose and take a deep breath—they still smell of detergent and are soft from hundreds of washings.

               These blankets were one of my first projects. I went to the fabric store and touched dozens of huge fabric bolts until I found the right soft, thick woven cotton and silky polyster for the trim. I cut each blanket extra large and carefully sewed romping puppies on them. A few of the puppies remain, but most have broken free and run away after years of use by rowdy boys who used the blankets as superman capes, pouches for precious rocks, and beds where they could lie outside and observe grasshoppers at close range.

               It has been years since I sewed an outfit for the boys, and I feel a rush of guilt and regret. Why didn’t I make the little tan suits that I planned for them when they were 3? The fabric and pattern is still sitting in a box somewhere in the basement, becoming musty with lost promise.

               I run my fingers over the soft blankets, once again, holding firmly to my scissors and wondering how much to cut? This was Matthew’s idea, not mine, and I’d ask him, but he’s finally asleep. I don’t want to cut these blankets. It feels like cutting a part of my own body, but this is what Matthew wants. I am so tired. My shoulders ache, and my head feels thick and heavy. But I have to do this, and I have to do it tonight. I think of his sweet face, eyes trimmed thickly with brown lashes, holding his brother’s hand with such tenderness and telling me his plan—his plan that would require searching for a needle, threading the old sewing machine, and cutting away something precious to me in the dim quiet of a very long night.

               I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a twin. Growing up as an only child, I had an imaginary sister that I shared my secrets with. I told her about my crush on Stevie Rothberg and how I hated the smell of Dad’s woody cologne. I so wanted her to be real. I was overjoyed when I learned I was having twins. These two would never be lonely. I nursed them in tandem—it was tricky to learn, but I soon got the hang of it with practice and plenty of firm pillows. We sat together, the three of us nestled in my big sleigh bed all cozy and warm. We were a team, an exclusive club. Their soft tawny heads nuzzled in rhythm and I felt the milk let down and flow. We were at one with the universe, basking at its center.

               I remember a warm day in early spring—an unexpected flash of summery glow that sent everyone scurrying outside in to sun to encourage it and beg it to stay. I brought my two crawlers out into the damp grass, where they were curious, but didn’t like the feel of it on their knees. Brian crawled to the porch and pulled up, cruising along its length, and Matthew watched with mild curiosity. Brian, always the leader, turned to Matthew and held out his hand, opening it and closing it in a baby wave. Matthew stood and walked to him, just two steps, then caught his hand. Brian let go and took Matthew’s other hand. They stood there a moment, weaving back and forth in a toddler dance, until they let go and fell back simultaneously on the grass, giggling at their mutual joke.

               I felt, even then, that my part in their world was diminishing. They were linked deeply, inextricably, as close as two people could possibly be. They had each other, and they were wrapped in their own tight dyad. I was a secondary force, just the diaper changer and snack fixer, the boo-boo kisser and rocker to sleep.

               Thinking about these early jealousies, I feel another wave of self-recrimination. I thought of Brian’s face reaching into mine, silently begging me to work my Mommy magic, and Matthew, sitting helpless beside him, rocking back and forth and whispering to himself. Such sweet boys they are. They deserve each other’s love. I silently trace a corner of Matthew’s blue blanket that I hold in my hand. I hold my breath, and cut.

               When I was twelve, my best friend was Dina Morrison. She moved to my Louisville neighborhood from Memphis, and I loved her southern accent. It never occurred to me that I also had a southern accent, just a lighter one. Dina had presence. She could tell a story and keep you listening patiently for twenty minutes until she reached the end, which was always funny. She picked me to be her friend, and I felt appropriately chosen. She was my soulmate, my true sister.

               Dina liked to live life dangerously. She dared me to trespass at the big mansion down the street where old Ms. Cassidy lived. Everyone was scared of Ms. Cassidy because she would yell at you if you walked in her yard. Each spring her yard burst forth with yellow daffodils and all of us little girls would stand at her gate, just watching and breathing their amazing fragrance. Ms. Cassidy had a mean black Rottweiler named Butchie who would bark if you got too close. One day Dina told me that Ms. Cassidy was out of town visiting her sister and had sent Butchie to the kennel. This would be our chance to see the place on our own.

               “I’ve heard there are old slave quarters there,” Dina said, “Where they used to chain people to the wall if they tried to run away.”

               This both fascinated and repulsed me. “I don’t know Dina. What about that mean dog? What if he comes back?”

               “The dog isn’t there! I’ve been watching all morning. A lady came and put him in the car and took him away. Now is our chance.”

               So, we climbed over the fence, and walked through the high grass to the barn at the back of the property, trying not to step on the yellow blossoms that stretched far across the lawn. We reached the barn quickly, and slipped in where the door stood slightly ajar. Sunlight streamed in through wide slats in the walls, illuminating particles of swirling dust like a glittering shower. There was nothing there except a large riding mower, some garden tools and bags of mulch and manure piled high against the walls. I was about to express my disappointment when I heard a low growl coming from just outside the barn. Before I could register what had happened, Dina picked up a giant clod of dirt and threw it at Butchie, hitting him squarely between the eyes.

               “Run!” Dina screamed, as she led the way out the barn door, racing across the lawn for the fence. I followed, with the barking, drooling Rottweiler close at my heels, running in terror with all the power my short legs could muster. We climbed to the safety of the other side of the fence, and I bent over, heaving to catch my breath, my heart jumping in my chest.

               Dina was rolling on the grass, laughing hard.

               I realized that she had tricked me. She knew that Butchie was still in the yard. She had made up the whole story about the slave quarters. I stared in the face of the stupid dog, still barking and jumping at us on the other side of the gate. A trail of broken daffodil stems stretched from the barn to the fence, bearing witness to our misadventure.

               I was grounded for a week. Dina and I remained friends after that, but it wasn’t the same. I knew she didn’t really love me.

               Now I’m moving with sure, practiced movements, carefully piecing the green square to the blue blanket and running the edges through the humming machine. This is done quickly, and I back the machine over the stitches a few times to make sure that the seam is secure. I repeat the process with the blue square, securing the stitches in just the same way, making sure the material is tightly fused together.

               I carry both blankets over the old brown sofa that we keep in our spare room, along with the sewing machine, the exercise bike, and a futon chair that we pull out for sleepovers. I sink into the sofa, still holding the blankets, looking at them, trying to understand what they mean. I think of the past year, which has been so busy with trips back and forth to the hospital for surgeries and chemotherapy, sitting up nights holding Brian’s head while he vomited, and taking turns with Don sleeping in the uncomfortable fold-out bed that they keep in the room for parents. Marvelling at how different the boys looked as Brian became thinner and paler and ever more like the ghost of his brother. Seeing Matthew shrink away, too, from friends and activities—he didn’t sign up for basketball this winter, and he spent most of his time sitting next to Brian, drawing pictures of the superheroes that they invented in kindergarten.

               And then, one morning—could it be just two days ago? I was no longer the mother of twins. Just like that, there was only one boy, who sat in the corner and held his arms tight across his chest as if trying to hold himself here on this earth. And there were people and flowers and casseroles, and more people who said how sorry they were. Sorry. I wonder what that means?

               “Mom?”

               One word and I am instantly awake. Who had spoken? The voice sounded like one of the boys, and yet older, and quieter. I look up and see Matthew, standing next to the sofa in a pair of dinosaur pajamas that are slightly too small for him.

               “I can’t sleep,” he says, and sits down next to me.

               I hand him a blanket, Brian’s green one, which now has one corner sewn with a piece of fabric from Matthew’s blue blanket. He sees what I have done, that I’ve cut the blankets and sewn them like I asked him to. He looks up at me and smiles a little half smile, then hugs the blanket tight. He buries his face in it. Soon I can see his shoulders are shaking as he quietly sobs. I put my arm around him and hold him, feeling helpless, a poor substitute for the brother and soulmate that he has lost.

               I feel a wave of love for this boy, who, though until now always part of a matched set, is unique to me and his father and everyone else who knows him. Now he, too, knows the exquisite aloneness of the human condition. He needs me now. Tomorrow we’ll bury the green blanket with the blue square along with my son, the other half of my twins. Maybe tomorrow I’ll cry, too.